Any Given Psycho
by silvermoonstone23
Summary: "Alright," he said into the phone, determination dripping into his voice. "I'll help you. I am going to need a slingshot, a book report, and a bag of old makeup." Maybe some things just weren't meant to go by the books. {Mangaquestshipping, Specialshipping, Franticshipping, possible Oldrivalshipping, absolute nonsense, highschool AU, one-shot}


A/N: This story came from absolutely no where. I know I'm posting a lot today but I have a lot of stories saved up and I just wanted to get them out because I haven't done anything since like the tenth. ALSO, it is still Friday in my time zone, so yay! I should definitely go sleep now...Hope you enjoy this absolute NONSENSE. I used a couple really random and totally unrelated story starters to string this together. Also, I think I got the ending scene and the part about the polygamy from a sitcom, so I totally do not own that bit XD

_Edit: so I wrote most of this super late at night and so I've fixed some of the technical issues now (if other things are left incorrect, either my country's spelling/grammar is different than yours, or it was intentional.)_

_Rant over! Read on!  
-Silvia_

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Pokespe or anything else. It would be a real disaster if I did... **

* * *

**Any Given Psycho**

"Every morning I wake up in the armpit of this alien world," Silver moaned dismally.

"Well aren't you just slaphappy on this fine Friday afternoon," Ruby observed.

"'Slaphappy' would be a word better directed towards Gold." The grumpy redhead jabbed a pencil in the direction of his perpetually infuriating friend. "And I don't appreciate the sarcasm."  
Gold scowled. "I'm certainly not slaphappy right now. I'm so _bored_," he proclaimed dramatically, but no one paid him any attention.

"All of my observations are sarcasm-based," Ruby murmured dryly.

"What are you doing, Ruby?" Gold asked. The fact that he would even bother starting a conversation that could end up being ten seconds or ten minutes—because this was _Ruby_ he was talking about—proved that he truly was bored.

"An art project," Ruby replied dismissively. He was staring holes into a canvas, his cynosure.

Sapphire frowned, her forehead creasing like the fine pages of a fallen, crumpling book. "Aren't ya supposed to work with partners on that one?" Sapphire too took an art class, but hers mercifully was a different period than Ruby's (thank goodness for that; the two were just good enough friends to choose each other as partners, but just bad enough enemies to kill each other in the process of a project).  
Ruby didn't even glance up at her as he delicately swooped his pencil across the taut fabric. "I don't want to fail just because other people have terrible taste."

"How sophomoric of you to care," Silver, a junior, droned.

"Don't sound so superior." Sapphire puffed her cheeks. "You're the one in the armpit of an alien world."

"By that I mean high school and the cesspit that is my friendship with all of _you_."

The quartet had set up camp in the back area of their school's library, their homework spread before them on the table they had claimed. It was just in front of a window. Gold watched distractedly as the sun emerged from behind heavy grey clouds. Bits of light were thrown off the glinting snow that had blanketed the bare branches of trees. It was the time of year for red noses, hot chocolate (with marshmallows, of course), and hope for snow days. It was the season where every hill was bedizened with children on sleds. It was also the time of year for midterm exams.

Gold loathed exams. He wasn't a horrible student. In fact, he was quite bright, contrary to popular belief. He just loathed the constant nagging and complaining and studying of his more serious friends. Even _Sapphire _was agonizing over her algebra worksheets. Gold had plenty of things he could have and probably _should have _been doing, but he just didn't have the patience. Yet every time he whined about wanting to do something fun, considering it was a Friday, Silver would hush him harshly.

Silver wasn't a horrible guy, he just had a permanent bitchface, a corrosive temper, and a mood like a rotten apple.

Ruby painted. Sapphire wrestled with numbers. Silver scribbled steadily. Gold skylarked.

After a while, a shrill cry pierced the library; Silver's cell phone. One of the librarians glared sharply at him. He flinched as if her eyes had physically impaled him—and Gold would admit, librarians could be _frightening. _Silver's expression was apologetic as he silenced his phone by answering it. Another shrill cry sounded out, but this time it was only Blue shrieking through the phone. Silver yanked it away from his ear until she quieted slightly.

"Blue?" he said cautiously. "Blue, slow down. Start from the beginning. I can't—Blue, I can't understand what you're saying." He paused. "What?!"

"What?" Ruby asked, mildly concerned, never deigning to spare them a glance.

"You want to talk to _Gold_?" Silver's pragmatic monotone was broken by this exclamation.

Gold snatched the phone from him. "Sexy, what can I do for you?" Sapphire pretended to gag, too distracted by this new drama to look for X.

_"Gold, I am in desperate need of your evil genius."_ Blue's voice was desperate.

Gold frowned. He could tell this was serious. And, contrary to popular belief, Gold could be serious (if he so chose to.) "What's wrong, Blue?"

_"Yellow is going on a date today."_

"Isn't that a good thing?" he asked. Yellow was a senior, like Blue, but painfully shy and immensely in love with their oblivious friend, Red.

_"No!"_ Blue howled in despair. _"She's been at my house all afternoon, but she just left, and I need to follow her, but I don't have a car I can use, and—"_

"So this is a spying predicament?" Blue was notorious for her meddlesome ways.

_"NO. LISTEN TO ME, GOLD."_ She sighed. I could almost picture pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration, something both she and Silver did. _"Yellow is going on a date that _is not with Red_. She came over and told me this, and obviously I freaked out because Specialshipping is my OTP—"_

"Specialshipping?" he interjected.

_"—but Yellow really doesn't think Red likes her. I tried telling her he's just clueless, but she wouldn't listen. Yellow has confidence problems, and she's for some reason convinced that Red won't ever like her—which is _absurd;_ the boy is _smitten_, he just doesn't know how to _communicate like a normal human being_—and so when Falkner asked her on a date, she said yes."_

"But…why is that really a problem?" Gold questioned. Sure, it would have been nice to see Red and Yellow together, but it would seem they were star-crossed.

_"Because Falkner isn't going to show up."_

There was the kicker. The reason why Blue—who would have been excited for Yellow about _any _social situation—was so against this date. Gold should have guessed. Yellow was so sweet, but it took time to get to know her. It took patience for her to let someone through her heavily-guarded petals to see the flowery, sunny girl within. Gold had been friends with her long enough for her to be comfortable around him, but he knew she came off as awkward and anxious. Perhaps that was why Falkner would not be attending their date, or maybe it was that Yellow wasn't gorgeous. She was rather plain-looking, but it was the little things that made her quietly beautiful.

It killed Gold to imagine Yellow waiting around for an idiot who would never show up.

"Alright," he said into the phone, determination dripping into his voice. "I'll help you. The plan will take a minute to devise. I'm putting you on speakerphone." He did just that, setting Silver's cell phone down in the centre of the table. Ruby, interest finally piqued, raised a sly eyebrow at Gold. Gold hated when he did that. It was infuriatingly sassy. "Blue, brief the forces. I've got Silver, Rube, and Sapph here." Gold whipped out his own phone as Blue brought the other three up to speed, her words a jumbled and hasty mess.

"Do we know where Yellow is going?" Silver asked his adoptive sister.

_"No,"_ Blue replied. _"She refused to tell me. She thought I would try to mess things up—which, in all fairness, is what I would do. All I know is she went back to her house to get ready. She normally asks me to help her with these things, since she's no good with makeup and doesn't really have any, but I don't think she really wants to talk to me right now. I said a lot of things about how she shouldn't go, and I think it made her more nervous."_

"Where is Red?" Ruby asked, taking on the case and setting his pencil down. When Gold sneaked a peek at his sketch, he found it was a girl's profile that looked too similar to Sapphire to be a coincidence.

Instead of Blue answering, Sapphire let out a few barks of sheepish, awkward laughter. "Funny story about that, actually. See, Red and I were playing baseball in the courtyard yesterday, and—"

"He's in detention, isn't he."

"Professor Rowan did _not _appreciate the ball hitting his car, no, but thankfully, I got away before he saw me. And Red was the real culprit, anyways!"

Gold held his phone to his ear, silently praying the line would be picked up. It was. A bored voice sounded out: _"Hello."_

"Green!" Gold said, filled with relief. "I really need your help. Where are you?"

_"I am in the vestibule."_

"What?" Gold asked. "Isn't that part of a train?"

Green seemed to consider it. _"Maybe. It's a foyer. Learn some damn vocabulary, other than curses."_

"You curse like a sailor," Gold pointed out.

_"Maybe."_

"So will you help me out?"

_"Maybe."_

"I need you to pick up Blue, and then bring her to the school."

_"First of all, I'm still _at_ the school, in the lobby. Second, I won't bring her."_

"Why not?"

_"Because I'm in the vestibule. Writing a book report."_

"Damn it! So you can't go get Blue, Red is in detention, we don't know where to go, and Yellow is going to be all alone." He needed some sort of panacea, he just wasn't sure what.

Green didn't know what Gold was talking about, but the idea of a sad and lonely Yellow was enough to make any one of their friends reconsider things. _"Take care of my book report, and I'll get pesky girl," _he said.

"Yes!" Gold pumped a fist in the air, as Green hung up on him. "Okay, I am going to need a slingshot, a book report, and a bag of old makeup," he announced to the table. And he explained his plot.

_"I was right. You _are _an evil genius," _Blue said from the phone.

Gold shook his head. "It's not me. Any given psycho could come up with this. Let's get to work, troops."

* * *

Gold employed Emerald as his slingshot man.

Emerald was an extremely short sophomore friend of his, whom he met through Sapphire and Ruby. Emerald continuously claimed that he was _not _friends with the bickering duo, but he loved them and loved to hate them. His reign of terror over the school's engineering program made him famous for all sorts of pranks and stunts with little mechanisms; not loud and attention-calling pranks like the ones Gold pulled, but pranks nonetheless. So Gold reasoned Emerald would have the original pranking gadget, the slingshot.

But he did not.

Gold felt his plan waver, floundering like a fish for a few moments before it picked itself up again, dusted itself off, and kept on running. Not having a slingshot was just a minor setback. If Emerald didn't have one, he could make one.

Gold deposited Rald in the woodshop, where he sat before a saw with a plank of wood and a very thick rubber band (this had been tying Sapphire's hair back, but they managed to untangle it from her wild mane of brown locks to use the elastic.) Gold himself ran to meet Green and Blue in the foyer of the school—the _vestibule_, or whatever ridiculous word Green had decided to call it.

Blue tossed a bag of makeup from her house to Gold, which he caught with only a little trouble. Green raised both his eyebrows at Gold—unlike Ruby, Green did not have the suave talent of being able to lift one eyebrow. "Am I going to get a book report? I had to suffer through her loud girly music. It was the most horrifying eight and a half minutes of my life."

Gold groaned. "Yes, yes, I haven't forgotten. Just—take Blue and meet up with Silver. I'll get the book report." He took off again, springing out the door, to where Ruby and Sapphire waited, already in position on their bikes. Ruby and Sapphire were the type to argue over their differences, but it was interesting to see their similarities. Both of them bonded over biking, as strange as that was. So long as Ruby didn't break a sweat, the duo cycled all through the city.

Gold deposited the makeup bag in the basket on Sapphire's bike and rattled off directions to Yellow's house before the two pedaled rapidly away, Sapphire whooping and Ruby shushing her.

With Emerald making the slingshot and the makeup bag on its way to its destination, there was only one item left on Gold's Grocery List of Mayhem: the book report. And unfortunately, for that, he needed the help of a professional studybug. He whipped out his phone and scrolled through his contacts until he reached _Super Serious Gal, _and called the number.

_"What do you want, Gold?" _she said as soon as she picked up.

Crystal was a girl with aurorally blue eyes and very nice legs, which she unfortunately chose to use for kicking and not for showing off.

"You knew it was me," Gold replied, surprised. "So you _do _have my number in your phone."

_"Yes. Your number is under 'don't answer',"_ she snapped. He could practically see the harsh expression on her face. He wasn't sure why, but teasing her filled him with a joy that could not be satisfied by tormenting others.

"And yet, you did," he said with no small amount of amusement. "Listen, Crystal…I called you because I really need your help. It's serious."

_"Oh? Really?" _Her voice was sweet and sour, a strawberry smoothie blended with doubt and shock.

"It's Yellow. She's going on a date but the guy's going to stand her up. We want to try to help her, and because of that I had to construct an elaborate and brilliant plan which somehow ended up requiring a book report. You're the smartest girl I know, and I figure if anyone can write a damn good book report in a short amount of time, it's you."

There was a pause, as if she wasn't sure how to react to the ill-formed compliment. Finally, she let out a reluctant groan. _"Alright, I'll do it. What book is it?"_

"Uh, I'm not really sure," Gold said truthfully. "Text Green; it's for him. I'm sure you've read it, though." Crystal tore through all the classics, the bestsellers, the advanced reading lists, and anything that was highly acclaimed.

_"Okay. Can I just ask you something? Why don't you just stop Yellow before she goes?"_

"It's a delicate situation, Crys," he said seriously, his voice softening with the gravity of heartbreak. He couldn't call Yellow and tell her Falkner wasn't going to come. That was no phone call that an unconfident teenage girl needed. But he had sent two of his agents out to at least try. "I've sent Ruby and Sapphire to try to stop her, but if that doesn't work, I have a backup plan."

He was astonished to hear the hint of a laugh through the phone. _"Well, good luck. I'll get you your book report."_ He wondered after she hung up if that was the most productive conversation they'd ever had. It certainly lacked the usual amount of insults.

Such a reverie he was in that he didn't hear Emerald's footsteps behind him until a tiny pebble hit the back of his head. He spun spastically to see the sophomore smiling evilly, brandishing his scrappy slingshot.

Gold grinned. "Perfect. But we're going to need a rock much bigger than that." He paused, considering. "And a freshman."

* * *

"I'm going to fine you if I get in trouble," Pearl, the aforementioned freshman, snarled. Gold clapped him on the back. "Don't be worried. It'll be fine. Just wait for the signal, shoot the rock, and run like hell is on our heels."

Pearl was the star pitcher for the varsity baseball team, an incredible feat for a freshman. Then again, their high school wasn't exactly strict with rules, seeing how Sapphire was on the boys' football team (the scariest part was that she was one of their best players.) Gold had located him in the home economics classroom just as Cooking Club was being let out. He peered at Pearl's bowl—which was filled with suspicious mush—and concluded that he was only in the club because of his best friend, Diamond. Gold had had to let Diamond and their friend Platinum in on the plan as well, since Pearl never seemed to move far without them.

In the end, it was beneficial. The pair of supplementary freshmen figured out which room detention was held in, and strode right in. Gold, Emerald, and Pearl could not see from their position crouched in snow-dusted bushes, but if all went according to their plot, Platinum would be distracting Professor Rowan with questions about his class, while—yes, right on cue, Diamond approached the window and gave the trio in the shrubs a brief thumbs-up, before skittering away.

They waited a few moments before Pearl took the slingshot in hand and aimed for the window. With a crack, he released the elastic and the biggest stone they could find shot through the air. It hit the window hard, splintering and shattering the glass in a split second.

Pearl and Emerald took off one way, Gold taking the other. He burst into the school, barreling down the hallway until he could see Red, Diamond, and Platinum hurtling towards him. As soon as he was upon them, Red's face the picture of absolute puzzlement, he spun melodramatically and ran the same course as them, all the way to the lobby, their makeshift headquarters. They arrived approximately three seconds before Emerald and Pearl sped in through the front door, breathing heavily. There, Gold's partners-in-crime were gathered; Blue, Green, and Silver.

"This day," Gold panted, "has involved _way_ too much running." He fished his phone out of his pocket again and dialed Sapph's number.

_"YEAH?!" _Sapphire practically shouted into the phone. She didn't have a very good sense of what was an acceptable volume. Gold thought he heard Ruby chide in the background, _"Inside voices, Sapph."_

_"WE'RE OUTSIDE!"_ she spat back.

_"That's no excuse for deafening Gold." _

"Guys!" Gold put a hand to his neck, absent-mindedly feeling his rapid pulse. "What happened?"

_"We got to Yellow's house, like you asked, and she let us in when Ruby offered to do her makeup,"_ Sapphire answered, at an appropriate volume at last. _"While he was doing—I don't know, whatever you do with makeup—I managed to get her to tell us where she was going."_

"Did you convince her not to?" Gold asked, with only a scintilla of hope at this point.

_"No,"_ Ruby remarked gloomily. _"She was dead-set. I think…I think she wanted to use this date as a chance to get over Red. Gold…I think she might actually like Falkner."_

"What?" Gold's heart fell to his shoes. "She can't, though. She loves—" He cut off, remembering he had an audience and glancing at Red, who was still clueless as to why he had been broken out of detention like a criminal from prison.

_"We couldn't tell her he wasn't coming, Gold. We just couldn't."_

"Where are you guys now?" He could hear his voice go flat with dejection.

_"She left, so we did too,"_ Sapph replied. _"We pedaled a little ways down the street before you called. She's going to Gracidea Court, that little café—you know the place?"_

Gold nodded reflexively, even though they couldn't see. "Yeah, I do. Thank you guys, you can go home now if you want. Sorry to make you, er, spend time together."

_"You kidding?"_ Sapphire asked. He could imagine her toothy grin, fangs bared. _"It's no trouble; he's my favourite enemy!"_

_"And she's my most loathsome friend,"_ Ruby added.

"Uh, right." Gold wondered when those two would stop being so dense and get together. "Even if everything didn't succeed exactly, thanks for the help." He ended the call.

"I take it Plan A didn't work?" Gold jumped more than he'd like to admit when he heard a voice right behind him. It was Crystal. She waved about a neat clump of papers; stapled and hole-punched and everything. She handed it to Green. "I _had _read the book, and written the same report last year. I'm in the advanced literature class, after all. So I tweaked everything, and there you have it."

Having gone on a rollercoaster of running and crazy antics and spontaneous feelings of loyalty for his wacky friends, Gold took her face in his hands and planted a great smacking kiss on her lips. "You're the greatest, Crys." With no further explanation and not daring to wait for her reaction, he circled the foyer—er, vestibule—calling out to his forces. "Emerald and freshmen, you're off the hook. Everyone else, you're coming with me. We've got a date to crash."

* * *

The other people within the café politely pretended not to be sneaking glances at the petite blonde girl by the window. She sat alone, framed by golden sunlight, the light glancing off of the tears in her eyes. She was in a booth seat, no one beside her, no one in the plain chairs across from her. One of the waitresses had taken pity on her and given her a cup of tea. Time ticked on, the door marking every new customer that entered with a halcyon _ding!_

The poor young girl—who looked to be about high school age—waited in sempiternal solitude, trying to ignore the susurrous voices of customers around her. Trying to ignore the disapproving voices of her friends in her head, the voices of inner demons declaring that she wasn't good enough for Falkner, for Red, for anyone. Trying to ignore the embarrassed heat flushing her, the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks, the prickling in her nose.

_Ding! _"HEY YELLOW!" shouted a strident voice. Her head snapped up. "WE'RE HERE!"

She saw them all at once—Green, Gold, and Silver, coming her way. And, with them, there he was. Red. They started towards her, a flurry of breathless and attractive young men.

"Are you with her?" a suspicious waitress asked—the one who had asked her previously if she would be dining on her own, not the nice one who'd given her tea.

"Yes; we're her dates," Gold, the source of the initial shouting, replied immediately.

She raised an eyebrow. "All three of you?"

"Yes," Green deadpanned with a blank expression.

"We're polygamists," Gold explained quickly. "We're all her boyfriends."

Green slid into the booth on one side of her, Red on the other. Silver plopped into one of the separate chairs across from her, and Gold into the one beside him. Yellow felt herself shaking like a leaf in a wild tornado, half out of despair, half out of pure love for her friends. It didn't take more than a few seconds for Red to pull her into his arms. She leaned into him, finally letting out her tears. She gripped his shirt and cried into his chest, while he muttered, "I actually have no idea what's going on, but I'm here, Yellow, I'm here now."

"I just…I keep wondering what I did wrong." She failed to keep her voice from trembling. "Why he didn't come."

"It's my fault!" Blue suddenly yelled. Yellow had not heard her and Crystal come in, but they stood before the table. "Can I talk to you, Yellow? Please, I want to explain myself." Yellow rose hesitantly, untangling herself from Red's embrace and stepping over to Blue.

Blue herself let out a breath, her eyes screaming _sorry. _"Falkner didn't come because…because I told him not to," she forced out. "I found out that you two were going on a date, and I convinced him—I don't even know what I said, I guess that you didn't want to see him. I thought I was being helpful; I thought I had your best interests in mind, but it was wrong and impulsive of me to do that. And I am so sorry, Yellow. I promise, cross my heart and hope to die, it will _never _happen again. I won't do this to you or anyone else. I realise how manipulative this was, and you don't have to accept me, but I just want you to know I am _so _sorry for doing something like this."

There was pause, vast and tense. "What you did was wrong." Yellow's grave tone gave Gold chills. But her icy, quiet hurt was broken by her summery smile. "But I know you were only thinking of me. I forgive you." It was Blue's turn to scoop Yellow up in a tight embrace.

"I'm so sorry, and I totally don't deserve the greatest best friend ever to be mine," Gold heard her bubble, spinning the blonde girl around before she finally set her back on her feet. Yellow giggled weakly and returned to her seat beside Red. Blue was about to follow, but Gold halted her.

"Was it really you?" he asked, suspicious.

Blue looked at him, sadness reflected in her azure eyes. "No. I ran into Jasmine this morning—she's Falkner's on-and-off girlfriend—and she told me that _she _was dating Falkner once again. And though he liked Yellow enough to ask her on a date, she's not the girl he wants." She glanced over at Yellow, the sun creating a halo of her blonde hair. Blue scoffed somberly, a soft "che" beneath her breath. "What an idiot he is." In an instant, her usual bright mask was back in place, and she squeezed into the booth next to Green, giving him her most winning, charming smile. He blinked and sighed, adding in a, "pesky girl," as usual.

Gold, too, was about to sit down, but it was his turn to be stopped by Crystal. "You kissed me," she deadpanned.

"That I did," he agreed.

Her eyebrows knitted together distrustfully. "But you don't like me. You like to mess with me. Boys like you like pretty girls who talk about nail polish and fashion and celebrities and—I don't know, whatever they do." Her tone could be described only as matter-of-fact. "And girls like me are far too smart for you."

"Not everything goes along what the books say," Gold pointed out. And, taking a leap of faith, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against her cheek. This time, when he pulled back, his nose still mere inches from hers, he did watch for her reaction; her face was tinted a rosy pink, her eyes wide and brimming with some wonderful emotion that matched the wild lightness of his heart. Behind them, Blue wolf-whistled and Red and Yellow clapped. "Any given psycho could figure that out," he finished with a smile.


End file.
